Kimi Antonelli is officially Lewis Hamilton’s replacement.
Mercedes announced on Saturday that the 18-year-old Italian will take the seven-time champion’s place next season when Hamilton moves to Ferrari. Antonelli would take over from Hamilton alongside George Russell, especially after Carlos Sainz signed for Williams and rumours that Max Verstappen wanted to leave Red Bull turned out to be unfounded.
“We are excited about what George and Kimi bring to the team, both as individual drivers and as a partnership,” Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said in a statement.
“Our new line-up is perfect to open the next chapter in our story. It is also a testament to the strength of our junior program and our belief in home-grown talent.”
“George has proven himself to be one of the very best drivers in the world. Not only is he fast, consistent and determined, he has also developed into a strong leader within the team.”
“Kimi has consistently shown the talent and speed required to compete at the top of our sport. We know it will be a big step up again, but he has impressed us in his F1 testing this year and we will support him every step of the way as he learns.”
Antonelli’s announcement comes a day after he made his practice debut for Mercedes … and crashed Russell’s car. Antonelli was competing in FP1 in Russell’s car on Friday and slid off the track and into the wall.
Antonelli joined Mercedes in 2019 and is currently in his first season in Formula 2, having won twice in the second division so far.
With Antonelli now partnered with Russell, eight of the ten teams on the grid have finalized their driver lineups for next season. The only two teams that have yet to figure out their driver partnerships are the Red Bull teams. We know that Verstappen will return to Red Bull, but it is not yet clear who his teammate will be. The team recently decided to keep Sergio Perez for the remainder of the 2024 season.
If Perez doesn’t return, Red Bull could look to bring in someone from its No. 2 team. Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda currently drive for VCARB, and Ricciardo could move to Red Bull’s main team to drive with Verstappen again.
